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Several
years ago at CMJ (the annual college radio festival in New York),
a little North Carolina band called Roman Candle announced their
presence in grand fashion: They handed out countless copies
of their self-released CD to almost everyone in attendance and
played packed gigs to curious talent scouts who weren't sure
what to make of this extreme show of self promotion or the still-green
band behind it.
But their songs were strong enough to trump any initial suspicion,
and soon enough the band signed a record deal and anticipated
the major label re-release of their debut, Says Pop. That was
2002.
Since then, the band has parted ways with its first label, Hollywood
Records, and found their way onto V2, which will release a revamped
version of Roman Candle's debut, now called the Wee Hours Revue.
Most of the time, major label meddling tends to ruin the artist's
original creative intention, especially if the label decides
to remix or, in truly worst-case scenarios, rerecord an album.
(See Wheat and Butterfly Boucher for recent examples of how
unsuccessful an attempt that can be.)
But with the Wee Hours Revue, every little bit of tinkering
actually improved upon the original in every way. The album,
which was never an indie record at heart anyway, sounds polished
in all the right places and is far more dynamic and varied than
it was as a DIY effort.
Most Dixie-born bands that attempt to fuse their love for modern
British guitar rock with dirt-road roots pop usually end up
sounding either too much like Radiohead or Son Volt, depending
on which side of their CD collection weighs more.
But on Roman Candle's best songs, like lead single ''Something
Left To Say,'' the band gets that hard-to-measure mix just right,
offering up what 21st-century Southern rock should sound like.
Roman
Candle is in the middle of a residency at The Basement with
North Carolina pal Thad Cockrell. They'll be back in town to
finish up their run on July 12.
9 p.m. Wed., June 28, The Basement, $5, with Thad Cockrell and
Dawn Kinnard
R-Rated: ROMAN CANDLE
The story of how "The Wee Hours Revue" and
"Says Pop"
turned from one to the other.
July 6, 2006
by: Jason Moon Wilkins
Most bands have a story. And sometimes a song will have a story.
But only rarely does a record have a story that is anything
more interesting than the name of the studio where the LP was
made and the producer involved in the recording process.
That's not the case with The Wee Hours Revue, the major label
debut from North Carolina rock band Roman Candle. We say "major
label debut" because the band did release a record called
Says Pop several years ago on an indie label.
The thing is, The Wee Hours Revue and Says Pop are essentially
the same album. How one became the other is the real story.
In this space a few weeks ago we gave a short synopsis of the
tale, but we decided to catch up with the band while they were
in town in the middle of their residency with fellow North Carolina
native Thad Cockrell at The Basement so that they could give
us the full, feature-length details.
Initially Says Pop was released by Outlook (an indie label owned
by NFL player Trevor Pryce), but after a strong showing at the
2002 CMJ conference, Hollywood and V2 Records aggressively vied
for the band's services. The band and Outlook eventually picked
Hollywood as the best option to re-release the album.
"We were thinking we'd go in and remix the record with
(producer) Chris Stamey and be done in a month at the longest,
and the record would come out in the next couple of months to
build off all the momentum we had going with Outlook. That's
what we thought was gonna happen," says Skip Matheny, Roman
Candle frontman.
"But what ended up happening was (that) we did finish the
record. We worked on it for like two months of 14-hours-a-day
sessions with Chris. Then we turned in the record and ..."
Skip takes a very long, reflective pause. "We didn't hear
anything back for a long time.
"Eventually, two years later, our manager Russell Carter
(Matthew Sweet, Indigo Girls) told the label, 'Look if you're
not going to put this record out, you gotta at least offer to
sell it back to us or something.'
They did offer to sell it back to us for about a tenth of what
they probably paid for it, and Trevor came in, bought it back
and called up V2. And within about 48 hours of us being dropped,
V2 was ready to put out this record that was now about two-and-a-half
years old.
Then, by the time we got extracted from Disney's fantastic lawyers,
it was almost another year or so before (The Wee Hours Revue
was scheduled for release)."
So why didn't the band didn't just give up on this album and
start with a clean slate? It's not that Matheny was creatively
stagnant during this period — he tells ATR that the band
already has two new records ready to go.
But the enthusiasm for the songs and for this recording was
so strong at V2 that the label insisted the Wee Hours Revue
be released. You might think the band would have been convinced
to take that tack, but even they weren't ready to move on just
yet.
"At this stage, we had waited so long for this record to
come out, we wanted to see it come out," Skip says. "For
about six months leading up to the release, after we finally
found out it was going to have a street date, what we mainly
felt was relief. And then, like in the last two weeks, we finally
have had a chance to get excited about it.
"One thing we've developed in the last few years is a sense
of humor. (laughs) What we really tried to do is not let (the
record label woes) interfere with out ability to make new music,
and that was an exercise in itself. Trying to keep our own ideas
of what we wanted to create alive, that was hard work. I feel
like we survived it, and I'm definitely glad that we have finally
got this record out. It wouldn't have ruined us if it didn't
come out, but good gracious, it feels good to have it come out."
Roman Candle finishes off their residency at The Basement with
Thad Cockrell and Dawn Kinnard this week. 9 p.m. Wed., July
12, The Basement, $5.
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